Replacement for a Hydrotherm boiler

zepfan

Does anyone know of a condensing boiler that is not a mod/con, just single stage that can be placed in parallel with any existing Hydrotherm boiler? We have a job that has two Hydrotherms one of which has a cracked heat exchanger.The better, and more expensive option would be to replace both with one large mod/con boiler that has primary/secondary pumping.If anyone has used a condensing, staged boiler that does not require primary/secondary pumping please post. Thanks to all.

SWEI

You can't really condense reliably without modulating down in most applications. I'm not aware of anything fixed rate that will.

Most of the current fire-tube HX designs work just fine when direct-pumped. How many BTU's do you need and what are the flow rates?

zepfan

Thanks for the response, but the more I think about this I would rather replace both boilers with one large mod/con that has a 4:1 turn down ratio, or put a new heat exchanger in the boiler that is down.These are the options we are going to give the customer.Thanks again.

RobG

What model of HydroTherm boiler are you replacing?

zepfan

AM-150, there are two of them on this job

RobG

Good luck finding a heat exchanger for that thing. I was thinking it was a Pulse when you mentioned the heat exchanger as their cast iron boilers were very solid (they quit making the Pulse about 10 years ago thank god). Is this job in the Maryland/DC area, they used to have great representation there and sold tons of them?

Definitely replace both of them and go with a modcon. It will save the owners and yourself allot of headaches down the road. I have replaced more of those heat exchangers than I can remember.